Toilet instalment #4. As our journey progresses we run into more and more ‘electric’ toilets. The latest gadget I discover is a button on the console that flushes the toilet. Had to figure it out because the toilet had no lever.
In Canada when a public toilet is being cleaned it is closed. “Do not enter, Danger slippery when wet, Keep the hell out.” In Japan, it is no bother and as I stand at a urinal a LADY is busy disinfecting the urinal next to me. No big deal. We sure have a lot of crazy rules and hang ups in our part of the world.
Today is a day to make time. We are a long way from the car return place in Osaka and we have to have it back by 1:30pm. We opt for the toll roads. The max speed is 80km/hr. There are a few stretches of 70 and a few of 50. I am following the traffic in front of me and trying not to hold up the folks behind me and we move at 100 to 110 km/hr. No one seems to be bothered as we pass very few people. It seems like 100 is the speed to go???
The expressways in Japan do not have passing lanes. They use “Slower Traffic Lanes” to sort out the long line of cars that accumulate on some stretches of the road.
Today is a stellar tunnel day. When we were on Shikoku Island, we passed through many tunnels, but neglected to actually count them. Today, mostly to amuse the four math oriented brains in the car, we track the lengths of the tunnels. Here are some stats:
- Number of tunnels driven through: 39
- Shortest tunnel: 180 meters
- Longest tunnel: 2,827 meters
- Total length of tunnels driven through: 32,271 meters!
We make great time from Tottori to Osaka. Clarice has given us great directions for the last 8 days and she is pretty close to the mark today. Our trouble arises when L uses her phone to get us the address of the car rental place in Osaka. Only a couple of letters makes for a world of difference when you have to get to a specific company. We are looking for Nippon Car Rentals and L has us zeroed in on Nissan Car Rentals. It only took us an hour to figure out our misguided GPS and within 10 minutes of asking the Nissan ladies where the Nippon office is we found it.
We are now in Kyoto with three full days to see the sights. Here we go!
